Unit 2 Author Facts

Question 1

This author had a genius for inventing comical fictional narrators

Answer 1

Irving

Question 2

His masterpiece Nature, with its emphasis on self-reliance and individuality, became the unofficial manifesto of transcendentalism

Answer 2

Emerson

Question 3

In 1835, he married his not-yet-thirteen year old cousin Virginia

Answer 3

Poe

Question 4

His masterpiece The Scarlet Letter is a novel about sin and guilt among the early Puritans

Answer 4

Hawthorne

Question 5

This author is considered to be the inventor of the modern detective story

Answer 5

Poe

Question 6

He was and still is one of the most popular poets American has ever produced

Answer 6

Longfellow

Question 7

The death of his wife from tuberculosis threw him into a spiritual crisis and caused him to question many aspects of his life

Answer 7

Emerson

Question 8

His novel Moby-Dick is widely regarded as one of the finest novels in American literature

Answer 8

Melville

Question 8

He advocated simple, mindful living and rejected a lifestyle dedicated to the pursuit of wealth

Answer 8

Thoreau

Question 8

This author found inspiration in German folklore and legends

Answer 8

Irving

Question 9

This author attended the University of Virginia bur was forced to leave because of gambling debts he couldn’t pay

Answer 9

Poe

Question 10

This authors masterpiece was The Sketch Book, which took him to the Peak of international success

Answer 10

Irving

Question 11

He is remember as one for America’s first environmentalists and a writer of uncommon vision

Answer 11

Thoreau

Question 12

His poems have been criticized for offering easy comfort at the expense of illumination

Answer 12

Longfellow

Question 13

Although today he is considered as one of America’s great novelists, his work was never fully appreciated during his time

Answer 13

Melville

Question 14

Tragedy struck for this author in 1867 when his son Malcolm killed himself with a pistol

Answer 14

Melville

Question 15

As a protest of the Mexican War he refused to pay his poll tax and spent a night in jail as a result

Answer 15

Thoreau

Question 16

He got into Harvard when he was just 14 years old

Answer 16

Emerson

Question 17

He became a sailor by the age of 19 and spent several years working aboard whaling ships

Answer 17

Melville

Question 18

He is often cited as one of the most significant writers in American hisory

Answer 18

Emerson

Question 19

He was the first American do be inducted into the Poets’ corner at Westminster Abbey

Answer 19

Longfellow

Question 20

He spent 9 years honing his writing skills on the third floor of his mother’s house, which he called his “Dismal Chamber”

Answer 20

Hawthorne

Question 21

His ancestor was a judge for the Salem Witch Trails

Answer 21

Hawthorne

Question 22

This author is considered to be America’s first literary celebrity

Answer 22

Irving

Question 23

In 1860, this author caught a cold, beneath which lay an incurable tuberculosis

Answer 23

Thoreau

Question 24

He is considered a master of the physiological thriller

Answer 24

Poe

Question 25

His charterer as a man and his focus as a writer were shaped by a sense of inherited guilt

Answer 25

Hawthorne

Question 26

He is considered Transcendentalism’s most important philosopher

Answer 26

Emerson

Question 27

He is considered Transcendentalism’s most important practitioner

Answer 27

Thoreau

Question 28

He worked as a professor of French, Spanish, and Italian at Harvard

Answer 28

Longfellow

Question 29

The lack of a natural father and disapproval of his foster father led to his growing moodiness

Answer 29

Poe

Question 30

He believed that evil was the dominant force in the world, and his fiction expresses a gloomy vision of human affairs

Answer 30

Hawthorne

Question 31

His first two books, Typee and Omoo, were based on his adventures in the south seas.

Answer 31

Melville